No. 1 — Urikohime
An old woman picked up a melon that had drifted down a river, and raised the girl born from inside it with great care as Urikohime. But while she was left watching the house alone, Urikohime was tricked and eaten by a yamanba, an old woman of the mountains who eats people, who then put on her skin and took her form. The old man and woman, returning home, unknowingly ate Urikohime's flesh, but when they made the yamanba wash the blood from her face, her true form was revealed, and the yamanba fled. The next morning, Urikohime, turned into a bush warbler, longed for her father and mother and flew off crying into the mountains.
- Land
- Shiwa District
- Beings
- yamanba
This is an English rendering of our short Japanese summary of the source tale — a summary translated from the Japanese, not a translation of the original text. The summary was drafted and translated with AI assistance, and names and numbers were checked against our records. Tale numbers for this book follow the order in which the tales appear; they are ours, not the book's.